Rally at State House protests Alabama's immigration law

The Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice held a rally at the State House today to protest the state's new immigration law. (Natalie Wade, al.com)

MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- Several hundred people from Albertville to Mobile rallied in front of the State House today to ask legislators to repeal the state's immigration law.

''You know you are being reckless with other people's lives. Turn this deadly, grief-bearing ship around," said one of the speakers, Rev. Ellin Jimmerson, minister to the community at Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville.

Before the start of the hour-long program, sponsored by the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, many people in the crowd chanted in Spanish, ''We're Latinos, not criminals," ''No more H.B. 56," and ''One Family, One Alabama."

The law, which was House Bill 56 when the Legislature passed it last year, as written makes it a crime for someone to even be in Alabama without proof of legal presence in the United States. Parts of the law are on hold while courts determine its constitutionality.

Jose Perez, a student at Pelham High School, told the crowd that, ''H.B. 56 is wrong."

Perez afterward said he was born in Mexico and is not a U.S. citizen, but has lived in Alabama for 13 years. ''This is my home. This is the only place I know. I feel like an Alabamian in every way," he said. ''I simply think that someone who is trying to persecute and use immigrants as scapegoats does not have the right to kick me out and break the bonds of friendship that I have with people right now."

Shandi Olivares of Fort Payne, a Gadsden native, told the crowd that she's afraid her husband, a construction worker and undocumented immigrant, will be deported if the law remains in effect, leaving her and their three children, who are U.S. citizens, without an income-earner in the family.

''It would tear my family apart," Olivares said after her speech.

Wayne Kimberly, a building contractor in Auburn, warned the crowd that the law, if it continues in effect, will drive Hispanic workers out of the construction industry and lead to higher construction and repair costs.

''We need people who can dig a ditch, we need people that can crawl under a house, and we need people that can nail the shingles on the roofs," Kimberly said. ''By and large, the people in Alabama that were born here, those are jobs they don't really want to do."

State Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, sponsor of the immigration law, predicted lawmakers would revise the law to make it clearer and easier to enforce, but not repeal it. ''We are not going to weaken the law," he said. ''We are not going to repeal any section of the law."

Sharon Richards, president of the metro Montgomery branch of the NAACP, at the rally said, ''H.B. 56 has been and continues to be an economic disaster for Alabama."

She mentioned a recent report by Samuel Addy, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama, that estimated the immigration law could reduce the state gross domestic product by at least $2.3 billion. His report assumed the law caused or will cause 40,000 to 80,000 unauthorized workers to leave the state.

Some people after the rally complained of being blocked by legislative employees from visiting the gallery overlooking the House of Representatives or from delivering a note to a legislator.

Zayne Smith, a rally organizer and an attorney with Alabama Appleseed, a public policy advocacy group, said a security guard, not long after the rally ended, blocked her from getting to the House gallery. ''That's a denial of somebody's right to access their government," Smith said. She later did go, unblocked, into the House and Senate galleries.

Rep. Merika Coleman, D-Hueytown, just after the rally spoke on the House floor about reports she had heard of denial of access.

Derek Hamilton, director of House security, in an interview said no one on his staff was advised to obstruct anybody.

Coleman about an hour after the rally ended said she didn't know of any access restrictions at that time. ''I think the intent was to have some order. I think it may have gone overboard a little bit," she said.